AKADEMIA Forum organizes events throughout the 2024 Spring Semester

Throughout the spring semester the AKADEMIA FORUM organized three CineForum events and two Artivism events under the theme Fostering Human Rights Cultures and World Citizens.

The first CineForum event titled Me, Food and Human Rights took place on 22 May, and screened the documentary “Planet Local, A Quiet Revolution.” We first had a talk from Professor Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen on the topic of the Climate Crisis and the way our daily food consumption directly links to this. The talk situated our consumption within the context of a globalized industrial-agricultural food system which is significantly harmful to the environment and rooted in values and economies that destroy the natural world. At the event we inquired about our own food habits, what we eat, how far we know how our food is produced, and what we can do to buy food that has less negative impact. After watching the documentary, we held discussions in small groups. The overall takeaway as well as the emphasis of the event was how what we eat links significantly to the climate crises and to broader issues of human rights violation. In short, if our daily consumer habits are so deeply implicated in global issues, what is our personal responsibility - what does it mean in this context to act as a world citizen? This event made us realize there are many things we can do, such as cutting down on meat consumption and buying local produce which will positively impact the world and make us more responsible citizens.

Following that idea of personal responsibility and nurturing our sense of humanity in caring for our planet, the second and third CineForum events were for the first time at Soka University focused on Pride Month and how this relates to human rights. We also made those events different in that they screened full-length movies rather than documentaries. The aim was to educate participants through more artistic and intimate queer narratives that engage audiences on an emotional and personal level; the response from the audience was that they could connect at the “human level”. The movies resonated with the audience because, although fictional, they portrayed LGBTQIA+ realities as part of complex cultural assumptions and politics resulting in participants' audiences thinking deeper about the broader societal discourses and common social practices they otherwise take for granted.

While LGBTQIA+ issues are of course included in the topic of Human Rights, it is important to highlight that conversation and discourses about who deserves rights in the first place importantly needs to discuss why some people are considered undeserving of being considered human with the same rights to dignity and freedoms. This needs unhinging dominant discourses and assumptions that are often overlooked but excludes the very existence of groups that have historically been marginalized and are discriminated against to this day. Thus, choosing Pride Month as a theme, The AKADEMIA Forum was able to bring to the forefront issues of equality and discrimination, intersectionality, visibility and representation, legal protections, social progress and most importantly focus on the issue of human dignity in an in-depth manner. Fostering a deeper understanding of historical complexities and the social embeddedness of values that can deliver human dignity is a central objective of Soka Education; understanding such deeper cultural and political issues is also necessary to even begin discussing how in reality we can foster human rights, cultures or personally act as world citizens. Thus, a second theme focused particularly on NO ONE LEFT BEHIND, and that Queer Rights are Human Rights.

With that focus, the first ever Pride Month CineForum event took place on the 31st of May, screening the highly acclaimed Japanese movie Monster or 怪物 (2023) , which tells a story of the developing relationship between two young boys set within a Japanese cultural context where silencing truth is the norm if this truth disrupts the facade of “harmony”. The film is masterfully directed and involves the perspective of one of the boy’s mothers and their teacher, as well as the wider school culture where social hierarchy and the silencing of truth dominate. The film shows the intricate entanglement of a complex situation where social expectations to maintain surface “harmony” results in covering up social injustices; the film captures the tensions of the social impact experienced by individuals who are pressured to conform to not speaking the truth so as to maintain “harmony”.

The second Pride Month CineForum event took place on June 14th, screening the Kenyan movie Rafiki (2018), which focuses on the relationship between two women who are daughters of political rivals in their community and who struggle as their romance develops under the gaze of a society where homosexuality is illegal. The choices in movies strove to encourage deeper understanding of how relations of social power, discourse and politics intertwine, and in the small group discussions that followed each screening we considered these wider issues and realities of queer experiences in communities culturally different from the more eurocentric gaze that often centers queer discourse. Discussions were able to encompass not only the narratives portrayed in the films but also the personal experiences, subjectivities and worldviews of those who attended our events and felt challenged and moved by the movies screened.

Finally, two Artivism events were also held under the motto of Art-Driven Action for Justice and Peace on June 5th and June 19th. Although also encompassing Pride Month related topics, according to our student participation, the aim was to open a space where people could engage in presenting and discussing topics that were of relevance to the focus on Human Rights issues as well as putting the spotlight on how that relates to experiences and topics that moved their hearts in their daily lives. These events encompassed subjects such as empowering education for younger children, reflecting on privileged positionalities and how to use such privileges productively to help those less fortunate: how to use genderqueer experiences and self-expression in art, as well as how to improve our own environments such as changes we might like to see in the university in terms of gender equality and increased sustainability, to the ongoing violent oppression and colonization by the Israeli government towards the Palestinian people. Creating such public spaces for face-to-face and in-depth discussion and dialogue where people can raise their concerns and express their opinions with an aim to foster deeper understanding and solidarity between diverse groups of people has been a major objective of the AKADEMIA Forum.

Each event was attended by between 20 to 50 people, including students, faculty and staff members, as well as guests. Everyone enjoyed having the space to discuss how the three components of world citizenship - Courage, Wisdom and Compassion - as proposed by the founder of Soka University, Daisaku Ikeda could be center stage to action for human rights, art and dialogues for peace. It was a great learning experience of value-creation for everyone who participated.